Speculative Literature News
News from the Speculative Literature writing community, including items from Locus Magazine, SFWA, etc. Please contact us if you would like to suggest a news source.
Fantasy illustrator MICHAEL HAGUE, 77, died March 10, 2026 in Colorado Springs CO.
Michael Riley Hague was born September 8, 1948 in Los Angeles CA. He attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He illustrated for numerous books, many of them classics,...
Fantasy author John Flanagan, 81, died February 7 of complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
John Flanagan was born May 22, 1944 in Sydney, Australia. He worked in advertising and wrote TV sitcoms before publishing The Ruins of Gorlan, first in The Ranger's Apprentice series, in...
Joyelle McSweeney, author of the poetry collection Death Styles (Nightboat) [amazon / bookshop], is among the recipients announced for the 2026 Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize, recognized in the Poetry category.
The Windham-Campbell Prize was...
Anathema: Spec from the Margins, a speculative fiction magazine by and for queer people of color, has announced that it is relaunching after a four-year hiatus.
We're committed to supporting marginalized writers by paying them a professional rate for their work....
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the recipients of its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jonathan Maberry and Lisa Morton. The awards will be presented on June 6, 2026, during the Bram Stoker Awards at StokerCon®2026 in Pittsburgh PA.
The Lifetime Achievement...
By Christine Aicardi
Vector’s call to explore zoefuturism was the first time I heard of the word. But the editors’ framing of this newly coined variety of futurism spoke to me. Reading it through the prism of (feminist) scholarly literature in Science and...
SF writer and television producer ROB GRANT, 70, died February 25, 2026.
Robert Grant was born September 25, 1955 in Lancashire, England. He attended Liverpool University and wrote for BBC radio. He co-wrote with Doug Naylor the TV series Red Dwarf ...
The winners of the 2025 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards has been announced.
BestNovel
- WINNER: When There Are Wolves Again, E.J. Swift (Arcadia) amazon / bookshop
- A Granite Silence, Nina...
Outlaw Planet by M.R. Carey (Orbit UK; Orbit US) [amazon / bookshop] was announced as the winner of the 2026 Philip K. Dick Award on April 3, 2026 at Norwescon 48. In addition, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (Undertow) [amazon / bookshop] received...
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) has announced the winners for the 2025 NBCC awards for books published in English (including translations) in the United States. Titles and authors of genre interest among the winners include We Do Not Part by Han Kang, tr. Paige Aniyah...
The shortlist for the 2026 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2025, has been announced.
French Novel
- Festin de larmes, Morgane Caussarieu & Vincent Tassy (ActuSF)
- Aatea...
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association has named its 13th Grand Master, the multi-talented Ruth Berman.
Ruth Berman's speculative poetry has appeared in Asimov's, Amazing Stories, Analog, Aliens and Lovers, Burning With A Vision, Fungi, ...
SF writerJOSEPH L. GREEN, 95, died February 20, 2026 in Florida.
Joseph Lee Green was born January 14, 1931 in Compass Lake FL. He earned a BA from the University of Alabama. He worked in the American space program for 37 years, retiring from NASA as Deputy Chief of the Education Office...
On March 16, 2026, a New York district judge ruled that Tracy Wolff is not guilty of plagiarizing Crave, a bestselling YA vampire romance series published by Entangled, on account of no substantial similarity, ending a several-years-long lawsuit.
The original lawsuit was initiated by...
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced David Langford is the recipient of the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for distinguished contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community.
The Solstice Award, created in 2008 and given at the discretion of the...
The six-title shortlist for the 2026 International Booker Prize has been announced, with works of genre interest includingThe Director by Daniel Kehlmann, tr. Ross Benjamin (Summit US; riverrun UK) [amazon / bookshop] andThe Witch by Marie NDiaye, tr. Jordan...
The judges for the Crawford Award, which honors an author's first work of fantasy in book form, are soliciting books published in the year 2026. What qualifies as a book is flexible, including novels, novellas, poetry collections, short fiction, graphic novels, works in translation, or other...
The Aldiss Award, anannual award to acknowledge endeavours in literature and gaming, specifically around world building, in the science fiction & fantasy genre,'' has announced its 2026 longlist for worldbuilding in speculative fiction.
- Firstborn of the Sun...
By Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn
Center for Science and the Imagination, Arizona State University
At the Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI) at Arizona State University, we’ve edited and published more than a dozen collections of...
By Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn
Center for Science and the Imagination, Arizona State University
At the Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI) at Arizona State University, we’ve edited and published more than a dozen collections of...
Hellcon, the 64th Japan Science Fiction Convention, has announced the finalists for the 2025 Seiun Awards (the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo Awards), honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan.
Best Translated Novel
- ...
Luminous by Silvia Park (Simon & Schuster) is the winner of the 2025 Otherwise Award (formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award), given annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that expand and explore our understanding of gender.
...
The shortlist for the 2026 International Dylan Thomas Prize has been announced. The six-title list includes genre books Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt (Jonathan Cape; Vintage) and Under the Blue by Suzannah V. Evans (Bloomsbury Poetry).
The annual Dylan...
Finalists for the 2026 Imadjinn Awards have been announced. Categories, titles, and authors of genre interest include:
Best Science Fiction Novel
- Dead to Rights: A Car Warriors Autoduel Novel, Jay Barnson (Three Ravens)
- ...
Hachette Book Group has cancelled the upcoming US release and will discontinue the UK release of horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard after reviewing the text for signs of generative AI use.
Shy Girl was self-published in February 2025 and republished in...
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley (Erewhon) is one of the five titles shortlisted for the inaugural James Patterson and Bookshop.org Prize, a new literary prize celebrating debut authors, hand-selected by independent booksellers.
Titles, which must be...
The shortlists for the 2026 Carnegie Medal for Writing and Carnegie Medal for Illustration, honoring UK books for children and young adults, were announced March 10, 2026. Titles and authors of genre interest include:
Carnegie Medal for Writing
- ...
Baen Books has announcedthe ten finalists for the 2026 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award.
- Thomas Butler
- Jason P. Crawford
- Joyce Frohn
- Liam Hogan
- Philip Levin
- Paul Malory
- Joel C. Scoberg
- Gideon Smith
- ...
The Climate Fiction Prize has announced its inaugural shortlist. Founded by Rose Goddard, Imran Khan, and Leo Barasi and supported by Climate Spring, the prize seeks to celebrate the most inspiring novels tackling the climate crisis.
Shortlisted titles and authors of genre interest...
The IAFA is pleased to announce that the winner of this year's Crawford Award isCall and Response (Neon Hemlock) by Christopher Caldwell.
The Crawford Award, given by the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts, recognizes an outstanding writer whose...
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the recipients of its 2026 Specialty Awards.
Bad Hand Books is the recipient of the Specialty Press Award, given to a specialty publisher whose work has substantially contributed to the horror genre, whose publications display general...
PEN America announced the 2026 finalists for ten literary awards on January 29, 2026. The awards will confer nearly $350,000 to writers and translators. ... Spanning fiction, poetry, essay, translation, and more, these Longlisted books are dynamic, diverse, and thought-provoking examples of...
The 5-title shortlist for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize has been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest includeThe True Story of Raja the Gullible (And His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove),Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron), and...
The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the finalists for the 38th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the Lammys ), celebrating the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books. Categories, authors, and titles of genre interest include the following:
LGBTQ+...
Zando announced the launch of Evil Twin, a new imprint focusing on horror, from psychological twists to supernatural terror and bone-chilling gore, in February 2026.
According to Publishers Weekly, Nancy Trypuc, deputy director of marketing at Zando, will be the publishing...
Nancy Omondi is the recipient of this year's Working Class Writers Grant, presented by the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF). The $1,000 grant is given annually to assist working class, blue-collar, poor, and homeless writers who have been historically underrepresented in speculative...
Writer and organizer M.R. Hilde Hildebrand, 80, died in her home in Glendale AZ on March 4, 2026, after entering home hospice care for rheumatoid arthritis in 2025.
Hildebrand was born in 1946. In the 1970s, she became an active member, organizer, and host in Phoenix AZ fandom, working to...
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has released the finalists for the 2025 Nebula Awards.
Novel
- When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory (Saga)
- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK)
- ...
MILESTONES
CURTIS C. CHEN is now represented by Sara Megibow of Megibow Literary Agency.
JOSUE OF PACHUCA is now represented by Arley Sorg of kt literary.
AWARDS
MARTHA WELLS was...
The Resistance/ Vector 302
As Heraclitus pointed out, you can’t step in the same river twice. The current is continually flowing, responding to the seasons and the weather, swirling into ever changing fractal patterns. While this is literally true, the power of the...
The Resistance/ Vector 302
As Heraclitus pointed out, you can’t step in the same river twice. The current is continually flowing, responding to the seasons and the weather, swirling into ever changing fractal patterns. While this is literally true, the power of the...
Short fiction writer and editor Lee Martindale died March 10, 2026 after a brief illness.
Martindale was born in 1949 and raised in rural Kentucky. She sold her first story, YearBride , in 1992 at the age of 43. Her stories have since appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including...
The REH Foundation has announced the nominees for the 2026 Robert E. Howard Awards, honoring work that is substantively devoted to the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard or that carries on the spirit and tradition of Robert E. Howard, to better recognize and celebrate his influence on future...
International Thriller Writers has announced the finalists for the 2026 Thriller Awards. Titles and authors of genre interest include:
Best Series Novel
- The Big Empty, Robert Crais (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
...
The Audio Publishers Association (APA) has announced the winners of the 2026 Audie Awards, recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. Books and authors of genre interest among categories with winning titles of interest include:
Audiobook of the Year...
The Bookseller has announced the shortlists for the 2026 British Book Awards. Titles and authors of genre interest include:
Author of the Year
- Elif Shafak
- A.F. Steadman
Fiction
- Dream Count...
